In the current status quo, while many people understand the dangers of traveling at high speeds (as well as realize the subsequent reductions in fuel economy), a considerable percentage of these drivers do not actually reduce their speeds to comply with the proper speed limit laws or adjust to their speeds appropriately in response to hazardous weather conditions. This may be due to a few factors: either complete unawareness of the current speed limit, lack of vigilance (e.g. little to no regulation by law enforcement agencies to ensure that drivers obey the speed limit), or general feelings of apathy towards obeying the law. In any case, a speeding driver is a danger not only to himself or herself, but also to others around him or her. Furthermore, studies have shown that speeding vehicles, especially on freeways, use much more fuel than vehicles traveling at or below the normal speed limit, which can severely impact the environment and economy. Finally, drivers who are not reminded of their speeding habits will inevitably continue to speed. Therefore, a solution is needed to get drivers to adhere to a safe speed while driving by alerting them in a conspicuous manner of their speeding—and, if necessary, by forcibly reducing their vehicles' speeds.
Additionally, drivers who habitually speed often incur penalties relative to their encounters with law enforcement agencies. For instance, in many states, speeding in excess of 20 mph over the speed limit can not only produce an expensive speeding ticket, but may also cause the driver's license to be suspended for a certain period of time. When this happens, the driver has no recourse but either to cease his or her driving activities or to break the law by continuing to drive. If the commute to the driver's work location is substantial, or alternative commuting methods are inconvenient, the driver may be placed in a substantial predicament and his or her livelihood may be threatened. Furthermore, drivers currently have no means by which to review, and thereby improve, their driving habits, and/or to enable them to be more cautious in geographical areas where they are most vulnerable to speeding infractions.
Moreover, drivers who habitually speed and incur an excessive number of traffic tickets may also find their insurance premiums substantially increased. Again, there is currently no recourse that can reverse the negative effects of this penalty.
Thus, a speed reduction, alerting, and logging system is needed that provides improved feedback to a driver under a variety of conditions, reduces the vehicle's speed if necessary, logs data related to the driver's speeding habits, allows the driver to review his or her overall speeding habits in a useful way, and automatically transmits this speeding data to external entities such as law enforcement agencies and insurance companies, in order to enable the driver to obtain some form of preferred treatment by those agencies or companies in exchange for the reduction or elimination of speeding habits.